› added 5 years ago

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TIL that during WWII, Turkey had agreed to export an extremely large amount of chromite to Nazi Germany (partially contingent on what Germany would ship to them). To stop the shipments, the Allies 'pre-clusively' purchased much of the ore, even when they did not need any more of it.

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WkMpd TIL the blue star symbol on elevators is known as the Star of Life, and means that elevator is big enough to hold a stretcher
DQmj TIL that there is an “Awesome Foundation” that awards $1000 grants every month for “crazy brilliant” ideas and wants to “advance awesomeness in the universe.”
l7EXG TIL that the largest country subdivision in the world is Uttar Pradesh, India, with a population of ~241 million in an area slightly larger than the the state of Wyoming (~98k square miles). The largest city, Lucknow, has (only) 3.5 million people.
nDlb TIL that Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined
89ML TIL it took early “humans” 110,000 generations of using stone tools before controlling fire, another 20,000 generations until written language was invented, and only another 250 generations until we put a man on the moon.